“I go to my fathers, in whose mighty company, I shall not now feel ashamed” 👑✏️

RIP Bernard Hill

Done in both graphite and charcoal pencils in my copy of the LOTR

if i can impart any one piece of wisdom to y’all, it’s to, whenever possible, assume good intentions

assume people are trying their best, want to be good and treat others well, and that when their behavior doesn’t align with those goals, it’s because of outside factors that are pushing them to their limit

it’s hard to do, it doesn’t always come naturally, but it’s worth it

before anyone jumps in with an “op has clearly never worked in the service industry,” i work in a public facing library job

i have a patron who is mean as a snake. won’t respond when you greet her, barks orders at you, and is generally nasty

i couldn’t stand her & dreaded the moment she walked in the door, until i stopped one day & went “wow, to walk around feeling unhappy enough to treat people so horribly every day. what a difficult way to live.”

and so my tactics changed. i made a point to be extra kind & friendly to her. she changed her hair color one day & when i complimented her on it, she was very caught off guard & said “oh, thank you. my whole life i’ve thought i was ugly.”

now we’re at the point where she shows me pictures of watercolor paintings she made & says hi when she walks in the door. she’s not my favorite patron, but she’s perfectly okay. most unpleasant people aren’t inherently rotten, they’re just unhappy & coping with it poorly

assume people are always doing their best, even if their best happens to fall a bit short. assume good intentions

@giftober 2023 || Day 21: SPRING/AUTUMN

Israel doing well in Eurovision is a completely predictable result of the boycott. The people who are watching & voting in Eurovision are now at best willfully ignorant and apathetic and at worst actively pro-Israel, meaning there will be a disproportionate amount of people willing to vote for Israel and even people voting for them because of the boycott.

But saying that means that boycotting Eurovision was the wrong call completely misses the point of the boycott. The point is not "Israel should not win Eurovision", it is "Israel should not be allowed to compete in the first place". The point of the boycott is not to give the EBU views or money, so if you've been boycotting... don't give them money or legitimacy by voting for someone tomorrow to prevent Israel from winning. If Israel does win, that does not mean boycotting failed; it only further delegitimizes the competition and confirms we should burn the whole thing down.

It may be mermay, but it's always the witching hour. Finished painting from the sketch I previously posted.

may all of you get to experience being loved properly

Star Shower ⭐✨ 🌟

It's finally raining in California! Time to draw all the rain 🌧️ ☔

HD images and video process are found on my Patreon

If this pops up while you’re scrolling, I wish you unconditional love and massive success.

i hope that the discussion about student protests does not get reduced to "privileged rich kids faffing around at an ivy league school." setting aside that tenuous claim, over the last week, protests have erupted over the entire country. a few days ago, riot police beat, pepper-sprayed, and arrested NYU faculty shielding students; protests started at the university of southern california when the admin cancelled the valedictorian's speech; encampments appeared at the university of southern carolina, UT dallas, the university of maryland, the university of new mexico, IUPUI, virginia tech, the university of virginia, the university of illinois, the university of north carolina — chapel hill, the university of pittsburgh, uc berkeley, the university of michigan — ann arbor, MIT, emerson, tufts, the university of rochester, rice, swarthmore, the new school, vanderbilt university, with students arrested; students protested or walked out at miami university, northwestern, temple, the 5 claremont colleges: pomona, pitzer, scripps, harvey mudd, and claremont mckenna, stanford, washington university in st louis, students were arrested at ohio state, students were confronted by riot police at cal poly humboldt, after which they occupied campus, students were arrested at the university of minnesota — twin cities, after which faculty walked out; and yes, there are protests at the other ivies, most notably yale, with students facing mass arests after encampments, but there is also an encampment at brown, protests appeared at cornell, princeton faculty issued a statement of solidarity while students are preparing an encampment, and harvard banned the undergraduate palestine solidarity committee. there are thousands of students who are protesting for palestine across the entire country, facing harassment, arrest, and suspension in return

dykes read Fucking Trans Women challenge

i am so fucking serious

when i read this zine some time ago i was struggling to accept my sexuality. i never had sex ed in school growing up in south america, so all i had was the cultural knowledge that i was an object for the penis to go in. when the penis goes in, i was told at age 9, it will hurt so much you wont be able to think about anything else but the excruciating pain and im telling you this so you can prepare yourself, so you don't make any noises of pain to distract the man from his pleasure. when i read romance and erotica novels as a teen i'd think the orgasm the women characters described were a fantasy. yeah as in i didn't believe in the existence of (female) orgasm. no joke. so when i started questioning that i might be a lesbian... well. how the fuck was i supposed to pleasure a woman if they're unpleasurable??? i was panicking. like really, a lot. i mean as an adult i had found out about the clit and i had found out the female orgasm was in fact a real thing, but i could never fuck women the way a man would. i didn't know then that was a good thing, that that's sort of included in the "desire for women" part of lesbianism. that i had to relearn everything i thought i knew about sex, gender roles and sexual organs. but at the time i just thought every woman id fuck would wish i had a penis, and resent me bc i didn't. i thought theyd find me lacking and that i wouldn't be able to pleasure them without it. and then i read this zine. jesus fucking christ. Mira Bellwether tells us how she prefers to fuck her gfs with dildos instead of her real life penis right around the same page she reveals shes a lesbian. i felt like crying. i think i actually did. heres a woman with a penis, here's what i thought i had to be all this time to fuck women properly and she didn't even use the damn thing. she used her penis as a clit fuck me. do you even get it. she talks about how a real penis doesn't have the range a dildo does bc its softer. i think i will never forget what i felt when i read that. the drawing of a woman using a strap on with her penis hanging on top like a giant clit is gonna be branded on the inside of my brain until i die. my entire understanding of my sexuality is tied to this zine. my understanding of what turns me on and what doesn't, of what sex could be like, my acceptance of myself, of my body, of my desire for women. it turned my whole world upside down. without the trans perspective id never come to terms with my lesbianism and id never learn to define my sexuality in a way that works for me

That link is dead so here's the archive

Mira Bellwether passed last year. A legend of transfeminine and lesbian sexuality, and she died, and so many have yet to mourn her.

Please, read her zine. Learn how to please (and be pleased by) trans women. And when we tell you that we're lesbians, believe us. We literally wrote the book on this shit.

Pleinair Paintings by Florian Herold

@theemeraldforesthideout

Mary Oliver, from “Hum Hum”, A Thousand Mornings

Andrea Gibson, Birthday

Ellen Bass, "The Thing Is"

The more despair I endure in life, the more I love Frodo. I'm just. I'm so glad that Tolkien wrote him like that. He was a hero and it broke him. He was given too much to carry. The circumstances were dire, everyone was doing the best they could, and Frodo tried so hard, for such a good cause, and he...broke. And the narrative has pity for him, the characters show him kindness. Even after victory, his hurts did not heal, and it isn't considered his fault. He must go to the undying lands, to seek out peace there. In universe, he is forgiven for being human - don't be pedantic - and his great torment is recognized. He fell. He could not have done it alone. He is still a hero.

And, I think that's important.

“We set out to save the Shire, and we did… but not for me.”

Kinda hate that when talking about autism being a disability, some people only focus on the sensory part and ignore every other trait that can be disabling, or minimize those. Autism isn't only about sensory issues and these are not the only thing that make us have difficulties and be disabled.

Communication difficulties, social difficulties, difficulties with emotional regulation, rigid thinking, executive dysfunction, etc, are also traits that can be very disabling, and cause meltdowns and shutdowns, btw.

Not saying that sensory issues are not important, they are but they are not the only thing that make autism a disability.

Soulmates In Starlight

Watercolor On Black Paper

2023, 22"x 30"

White Wild Roses